Dennis Tuuri

We’ll begin reading at verse 20 and read through verse 24. Genesis 3:20-24. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothe them. And the Lord God said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also the tree of life, and eat and live forever.

Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. Let’s pray. Father, we do pray that your Holy Spirit would illumine this text to our understanding in Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

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It was my 48th birthday Friday. It was kind of a mixed day as most of our days are in our lives. My old friends Debbie and Takshi Fakuda gave me a birthday card that evening and I didn’t actually notice it until the next day. I read it then and it was pretty applicable I think to the sermon today. I’m going to talk from this expulsion text we just read on the fact that this is earth not heaven and that probably about says it all.

I could probably just sit down at that point but we will drive it home a little bit. They gave me a card that contained on it the 10 top hymns for people our age. Okay. So these are the 10 top hymns for people getting old like us. It is well with my soul, but my back hurts a lot. Nobody knows the trouble I have seeing, although most of the members of this congregation actually do know the troubles I have seeing.

Amazing grace, considering my age, just a slower walk with thee. Count your many birthdays, name them one by one. Go tell it on the mountain and speak up. Oh, give me that oldtimer’s religion. Blessed insurance. Guide me, oh thou great Jehovah, because I forgot where I parked. And the number one hymn for people our age, nearer my God to thee. Now, these are cards that are funny. They’re humorous. And why are they humorous?

Because they have an element of truth to them. You know, we can sing “Guide me oh thou great Jehovah” during Lord’s day worship services but frequently it is our car trying to find it in the parking lot that is our difficulty and you young folks don’t know about that yet but you will. And I think that as we all get older that sort of stuff happens more and more. Our lives are filled with little shooting things, thorns and thistles abound in the context of our lives. These sort of songs are funny because they’re so true to life. It is really the guidance of Jehovah as we mature, get older, and recognize our frailties and difficulties that become so much more important than the guidance that God really does give us.

We all, as we grow older, we face more and more health difficulties. Havy’s father apparently has cancer. Don’t know what’s going to happen there. Hobby’s driving down there this week. Please pray for him. Teresa’s mother—or stepmother—prayer message went through late last week. I guess the report back was good, but still, you know, we have a situation where there’s battling of cancer. John told me this morning that his mother had a mild to medium or somewhat severe heart attack yesterday. She’s stable now. Bob Evans’ dad is not doing well. This is what age many of the people in this congregation are now. Health difficulties certainly of our parents, relatives, and our own health gets more difficult too. Those are the health problems and we have emotional difficulties as well. You know, we love the fact that we have a godly church. We got godly families, godly mates, but we know that this isn’t heaven, that this is earth, and that this church has difficulties and problems.

Whether they’re of the old shoot variety or whether they’re big problems, varies from year to year. And most all marriages have problems, whether they’re the little old shoot stuff going on or whether there are bigger stuff that really requires a dark night of the soul sort of thing with an individual or a couple. This is what Christian life is all about. And this text tells us all about that. It explains to us why this is true.

Cain and Abel weren’t born at the garden. Adam and Eve didn’t wake up that next morning in the garden. They woke up outside of the garden. And knowing what had gone on, particularly both during the temptation by the serpent and particularly by the judicial inquiry by God of both them and what they both said and what Adam said about Eve. I could imagine that next morning was a little rough. I bet you that roughness lasted a good deal of time. They had nearly a thousand years to work that stuff through. Those of us who’ve been married any length of time knows that, you know, it doesn’t get over with. What God does as you mature in the Christian faith is he shows you more and more of your shortcomings. Now, praise him. He shows you more and more of his grace and guidance. But it’s not somehow that you reach a magical age. All the problems disappear.

Problems compound. Your depth of joy and your depth of commitment and your depth of thanksgiving to God increase. But it’s because of him showing you the depth of your own sin and the depth of the sins of those that lie around about you. Showing you the brambles and the thorns in the context of our lives. We all have those kind of things. And today I want to talk about the fact that this is earth not heaven.

I want to set these verses we just read in their context. It’s been a while since we’ve preached directly from Genesis. It’s been probably almost two months. Next week we’ll have another intermission in this series because Mark Horn will be out speaking to a joint service of RCC and Christ the Sovereign Covenant Church here next Lord’s day. They’re looking at him as a possible candidate for pastoring that church up there. So I won’t be in the pulpit next week either, but let’s just remember where we’re at. We’ll do that first. Then secondly, we’ll go verse by verse through this section. And then third, we’ll draw out some rather obvious, but I think very significant application for us. Okay.

So, first, if you turn in your outlines to point number one, review the Adam and Eve narrative, a chiastic outline. I’ve given you this before. I put Gordon—it’s Gordon Wenham is where this structure comes from. And I want to try this a little different. This sort of helped up in Seattle when I was up there doing this. I want to try it here. You know, we talk about heptarchous chiastic structures, sevenfold chiasms, inverted orders, and all that stuff. And it’s big words. Think of it as, and I’ve got it outlined here as the sun coming up at the beginning of the day and the sun going down at the end of the day. And in the middle of the day, it’s high noon. And there’s a couple of stages in there. You know, the sun comes up and the sun goes high at the center of its day and then the sun sets and the sun setting looks kind of like the sunrise and mid-morning sort of looks somewhat like mid-afternoon. Now there’s differences otherwise it wouldn’t be needful to have the whole circuit laid out but there’s a lot of similarities as well.

So think of it in terms of that structure here in the narrative of Genesis 2 and 3 which I believe to be a compact portion of scripture. Genesis chapters 2 and 3 beginning at verse 5 of Chapter 2, we see seven distinctive structures and you can think of it as the sun coming up and manifesting its light and then sinking as the expulsion from the garden occurs. So, sunrise, and we’ll say for purposes of the example at 6:00 a.m. in the morning, sunrise in this particular text that God gives us is God planting a garden and then God putting man in the context of that garden, in his presence, in his royal throne room. Remember, we said that those first few verses are filled with beautiful allusions to the beauty of that garden of Eden. It is God’s throne room. If you’ve ever been down to Butchart Gardens, beautiful garden there.

A man had mined out this huge mine. His wife then beautified it made into these huge elaborate gardens. At one end there are these trees. There’s a big lake, man-made lake, and then there’s a fountain there that has lights on it and computer-driven. You can sit there for hours and never see the same pattern of that fountain at this beautiful end of that Butchart Gardens. And I’ve often thought about the throne room of God. The garden of Eden is that kind of throne room. That’s how the sun comes up in this story is there’s this beautiful garden. And we find out that who we are is we were created to live in that garden and to minister to God in the context of that garden to both guard it and till it to defend it, but also to mature it and bring it to even more beauty. As we were instructed by God through his emissaries, the angels, how to go about doing that work of beautifying the garden.

So sunrise starts with God the garden, man placed there to rule and to exercise dominion over not just the garden but to take that garden and go into all the world. Remember the rivers are mentioned there to go down to the rivers through the rivers taking the beauty of that garden and God’s throne into all the earth. Same thing we do today, right? We come together for worship and we go up to the holy mountain and we see the pattern of what things are supposed to be like portrayed for us in the 66 books of the Bible. We get the pattern of heaven here and then we pray. We talk about that pattern and then we pray, you know, may it be done on earth as it is in heaven. As we leave heaven, Lord’s day worship, we’re supposed to go down those rivers and beautify all the earth.

So the sun comes up with that kind of beautiful picture of our meaning and purpose in life and the reflection of God’s glory. And then about 8:00 in the morning, the next stage of the narrative we read of the provision of a suitable helper for man. God teaches man. You know, Paul Keiny got married last weekend and I mentioned this up in Seattle that only took probably I think it was the sixth day itself where God taught Adam his need for his wife. I know Paul thought he needed a wife but for some reason God thought he needed a lot more instruction in his need. He made Paul Keiny wait for years for his wife. Well, he made Adam wait as well.

Men don’t know exactly what they need in terms of a helpmate. They think they know, but then God instructs them in his grace and mercy. So, as the sun’s coming up early in the morning about 8:00, we have this beautiful provision of this rising beautiful day. Beautiful provision of a helpmate for Adam. And that gives us meaning and purpose to who women are made are, what they’re for, what their purpose in life is. How do they glorify God. And then about 10:00 in the morning, the sun’s still coming up. It isn’t high noon yet, but all of a sudden, now we’ve got our first bit of dialogue. There’s two sections of dialogue in these seven narratives, these seven rather sections of Genesis 2 and 3. And the first one is the serpent coming to Eve. And we find out that things aren’t going to be quite like we thought they would be.

This is not going to be a beautiful day that just goes on perpetually. No, there’s going to be some stuff happening here. And Satan comes to Eve and tempts her in the form of the serpent. And we talked then about the importance of speech. You can’t read the newspapers. I can’t read the newspapers today or watch TV about what’s going on without thinking of Clintonesque speech as being speech that was learned from this guy we read about at 10:00 in the morning of Genesis 2 and 3. It’s the serpent duplicitus. Words don’t mean what they mean. Things are all twisted about. That’s serpent speech. We need to put that kind of speech off. But that’s what happens.

And then at high noon, at the center of this day that’s being pictured for us by way of analogy here, this structure that’s kind of like a sun coming up, reaching high noon and going down, at the very center of the text is the action of a man, not a woman. The central section is Adam and Eve and their sin. They’ve been tempted. Now, the section moves to a narrative description of how they fell. But at the center of that text is Adam’s action. He’s covenantally responsible for the action. He is the covenantal head of all mankind. And so at high noon in the text, the fall of man occurs. And now the sun doesn’t keep rising. Now the sun starts to go down about 2:00.

Then by way of analogy of this structure then as we move back out of the garden—another thing to point out here at the beginning of the narrative, he sort of starts outside of the garden. He makes man, but then he brings man into the garden to care for it. Okay. So they cross a boundary bringing him into the area to care for the land, the garden itself. Okay. And then a lot of stuff happened in the garden and by the end of the text man is kicked out of the garden.

So the text has brought us into the garden into the center of the garden where the temptation and sin occur, the very center of the garden and then it moves us out of the garden with the expulsion. And in as that begins to work itself out after this central action of man’s sin at about 2:00 by way of analogy. The judicial inquiry is presented for us there. And we have another dialogue. Remember I said this is mostly narratives, but there’s two dialogues. The serpent tempts Eve, but then God comes along and has beautiful, gracious, excellent speech to mankind to bring him to recognition of his sinfulness. He is the opposite of satanic speech. Satan’s the father of lies. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And they’re pictured for us here because one’s at 10:00 just before noon and the other dialogue is right after noon at 2:00 by way of the structure of the story. They mirror one another by way of antithesis, godly speech versus satanic speech.

And man, unfortunately reflects too much still in that dialogue with God of satanic speech. He diverts, he deflects, he denies his sin as we all are tempted to do. And then about 4:00, the next section here, the judicial sentence in provision. God then declares it’s not a dialogue. It’s just statements by God. He declares what will be the sentence upon mankind. And that kind of matches up with 8:00 in the morning, 4:00 in the afternoon. Because at 8, remember God provided a woman and man sang. And here God utters forth poetry again, but it is rough poetry. And now man is placed in a very difficult position relative to his relationship to his wife and in relationship to his vocational calling. And then finally at sunset 6:00 p.m. by way of the structure of the account, we have the expulsion from the garden, kicked out of the garden.

And now the sun is gone. Now the lights are out. Turn out the lights. The party’s over. God is light. And man is now shoved away from the light of God’s countenance. Man God dwells in the garden. And there’ll be a way of provision made to come back into the holy place of God through the blood of our Savior when the being pictured with his death on the cross, the veil being ripped in two, the entrance that was guarded by the cherubim opens back up to us.

But the narrative wants us to end with man in earth, not in heaven. Man being driven from the presence of God. Man who was made to till the garden now tilling the land outside of the garden. Man who was made to guard the garden now being guarded from the garden by the cherubim. Very interesting an discussion of speech here. The opening of the narrative, we’re told about east of Eden. We’re told about the garden. We’re told about tilling and guarding. All that stuff, all that vocabulary. We find that all reflected back again during the expulsion narrative that we just read. You see, they’re bookends to this account. But more than bookends, again, they’re in opposition to one another. The position of paradise gained and paradise lost. It wants us to see the correlations so that we know more fully how great our sin and misery is.

Could not write it in bigger categories. We worry about physical death. God doesn’t worry about physical death. Godly people, the more godly they get, that is not their primary concern in life. What they’re worried about is the loss of the presence of God. Take not your spirit from me. Outer darkness is over here and the garden of God’s spectacular beauty and light are here. Man is shoved away. Now this text tells us these two chapters. This chiastic structure going into and out of the center point of our sin tells us a lot about who we are. Tells us who we are. It gives us a lot of destruction in why we are the way we are, what men and women are all about. And this particular narrative, the expulsion narrative, goes a long way to explain to us why we don’t get together and say, “I had a wonderful, victorious, completely sinless week this week.” Praise God.

Or if we do say that, what liars we are cuz we’re in earth. We’re not in heaven. Okay, let’s work our way then through the narrative itself directly. Point Number two, Roman numeral number two, the expulsion narrative. First, we have the naming of Eve. Adam called his wife’s name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Now, there’s a play on words there. Eve means it has the same root as the word for living.

So, before it was the woman, now he actually names his wife Eve. He’s named her before. He named her woman generically. Now, he names this woman Eve specifically, but he does this as the mother of all living. Now, this is placed right after God has placed his judgment, not cursed. The serpent is cursed. The earth is cursed for man’s sake. Man and woman are given judgments. After they’re given the judgment and man is told, “From dust you came and to dust you shall return.” Immediately after that, we read in the text that Adam called his wife Eve because she was a mother of all living.

I believe it is a profession of faith on Adam’s part. I believe he does this because He believes that in spite of the death penalty for their sin, his wife shall still be the mother of all living because he heard the promise of God as God told the serpent that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the seed of the serpent and crush the head of the serpent himself. So I believe it’s a statement of belief and profession of faith in Adam’s part.

Secondly, in verse 21, we have the provision of clothing. Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord made tunics of skin and clothed them. Now, these words here are significant. The word for tunics of skin. A tunic is a long outer garment, typical garment of the Old Testament, worn down to the knees or even to the ankles. Now when Adam and Eve clothed themselves because of their shame of their sin to hide themselves from God, they chose loin cloths, itty bitty little things, itsy-bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini sort of stuff. Little clothes. But God vests them with full heavy clothing.

Now that might mean anything might not mean anything to us. You probably don’t think about your clothes a whole lot. But in the scriptures, a biblical worldview says clothes are important. When Achan goes to Ai and takes consecrated things, the things that he takes are significant. And one of the things that Achan took, we’re talking about the book of Joshua now, right? They go in, they conquer Jericho. God gives them that—I said Ai I meant from Jericho. Achan takes stuff that God said should have been burnt up in consecration to him. And one of the things he takes is a heavy robe. Now, see, that’s important. That’s not important to us. We think, well, it was just going to be a cold winter. But a heavy robe is a sign of authority and power. It’s investiture. That’s why those kings and stuff wear those big heavy furs and robes and stuff.

I saw as I was doing some internet searching this week on the topic of triumphalism which we’ll get to in a couple of minutes. I saw a sermon by some fellow high up in the I think Episcopal or Anglican church and he had a picture of him and he had those what is it mink and man robes on. Investiture you see heavy clothing is good and God wasn’t punishing him here. He was investing them with heavy tunics, robes and authority. Clothing is important. Secondly, it says that he clothed them.

Now this is not the normal word—they’re just saying put clothes on somebody. This is a word that’s used a couple of other ways in scripture exclusively apparently. And one way is used is found in Genesis 41:42 where we read that Pharaoh took his signet ring off his hand and he put it on Joseph’s hand and he clothed Joseph in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck. See, God is like Pharaoh here. He’s the ruler of the universe and he’s investing Adam with his authority as he clothes him with his heavy tunic.

So before we get to the expulsion, we have this two-fold picture of confession by Adam. He believes what God has said. He’s believed the word now. He’s not going to look at his own sight. He’s now saying, “My sight would tell me we are doomed.” But the word of God says, “Our seed will prevail. My wife will have children and they will live and the savior will come through that line. And in response to that, God invests Adam with authority. The authority of the king as Pharaoh invested him. Saul also in 1st Samuel 17:38, King Saul clothes David with his armor investiture.

Now the other way the word clothe is used is when Moses is told to clothe the children of Aaron with the high priest’s robes. And there’s various references. Exodus 28:41, you shall put them on Aaron your brother and on his sons with him. Exodus 29:8, you shall bring his sons and put tunics on them. Okay, same verbs going on here, the same noun. You’re going to clothe them with tunics, these sons of Aaron, the priests. Other verses as well. The important thing here is that this clothing is very significant in the context of the narrative. It sets up how he’s going to be in the context of that howling wilderness. He’ll be there, but he’s clothed. Okay? So, he invests them with a visible sign of God’s forgiveness.

Now, it is also true Calvin says the big thing with clothing here is it’s a sign of their sinfulness. And it is certainly that there’s lots of things we could say about God clothing with these tunics of skin. The people for the ethical treatment of animals wouldn’t like this text because God kills animals and makes robes for men out of those animals. He legitimizes that. Okay. He authorizes the slaughter of animals for the production of clothing. God did it. He also tells us here or we also can infer from the text that this is really kind of the beginning of the sacrificial system. The imagery is rather obvious that an animal dies to cover men’s sin. And this points to the coming of Jesus Christ who will die to clothe us with his righteousness.

And we talk about being clothed the righteousness of Christ as we come to communion. That’s what it’s talking about. As Adam and Eve were clothed at these skins, blood had to be shed in relationship to their sin and a substitute would come to pay the full price of their sin who would shed his blood and that of course is the Lord Jesus Christ. We could also see in the work of God here, you know, six days and he rests. Right away though, God begins back to work again by making skins into clothing for man and his wife. You know, the cessation from creative work by God is not a cessation from involvement in the affairs of men. That’s the doctrine of deism. We believe God is actively involved. And here’s a picture of his active involvement in the lives of Adam and Eve.

We could also say that this text gives us the most supreme example of the sort of work that we’ll read about in the New Testament where women and other people, men as well, would go about doing acts of kindness for other people by clothing them by making clothes, providing clothes for the poor. It’s an act of Christian mercy in alms. It’s one of the things the church has done for 2,000 years is to provide clothing for those who need clothing. And here’s the example of why all that occurs. All those things could be said, but I think ultimately we have to see this provision of investiture by God.

So these first two points kind of go together. Both of these two aspects show the mixture of God’s justice, grace, and mercy. God graciously grants Adam to believe and to name his wife. Okay, we know that, right? Adam and of himself wouldn’t have done it. God was gracious to Adam and brought him to belief and the naming of his wife. And also on the basis of Adam’s profession, he then clothed Adam, which clothing is very significant. Okay.

The text goes on and the next three items sort of go together too. C, D, and E. In terms of expulsion, first we have the motivation for the expulsion. Lord God says, “Behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever.” And it doesn’t finish. Very unusual grammatical construction. It wants us to know the speed with which God moved to expel Adam from the garden. And I think by way of the motivation, it shows us as well not just the rapidity, the rapidness of his action, but also shows his grace to man.

He doesn’t want man to stay in that eternal state by taking of the tree of life. And so he blocks him from that and that’s part of the reason the motivation for the expulsion from the garden. It forestalls Adam’s possible move to self-deification. This can be seen also somewhat the same way that God mingled the speech of mankind at the Tower of Babel. They were reaching up to reach to God. It’s not a big threat to him, but he does move to circumvent that sort of activity.

And so this rapidity of action man’s state now requires. He wanted to be like God. But what he’s going to find out is that what he really desired in his creation from God, what he really desires is fellowship with God. Big lesson. We all think we want to be like God. We want to have his power, his influence, his abilities, his wealth. That’s what we look for. But really, it’s vain. What Adam is going to find out that yeah, he’s become like God in a sense, determining for himself what’s right and wrong, but he’s not with God anymore. He’s expelled from God.

And so, that’s the essence of this darkening portion of the day as the sun goes down. The horror of the darkness is the absence of the lightgiver, Jesus Christ in the presence of God. And then we have the expulsion proper. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. See, he was taken from the ground outside of the garden. And now he’s sent back outside of the garden to till that very ground. And of course, we know from the sentence of God that ground’s going to eat him up. The ground’s going to swallow him back. The garden spit him out. And the ground drinks him in as it were.

Now the term sent out here is the same has the same root term as Adam stretching out his hand in the previous verse. He says well Adam is going to reach out and take of the tree of life. So to prevent him reaching out to the tree of life we’re going to send him out over here. Okay. So there’s this poetic picture of the expulsion of Adam pictured for us in this verse. This is another major theme, the dispossession of land via the garden. Man attempts to have a relationship with the serpent and with the land apart from God’s mediation, apart from God’s word. Adam attempts to have relationship with his wife in a way that seems best to him. He attempts to use his land in a way that seems best to him. He attempts to engage in conversation through his wife with the serpent because it seems best to him. And because of those things, he is then dispossessed of that very land. He’s kicked off of it to teach him that your mediation to the garden is through the covenant word of God. He’s kicked out of the garden rather and into the land.

The expulsion from the garden is a picture of expulsion from the whole earth which is then repeated through out the biblical account of various other the rest of the scriptures, the flood on the earth, etc., etc. Okay. In Leviticus, by the way, 20:22, we read, “You shall keep my statutes and all my judgments and perform them that the land where I am bringing you to dwell in may not vomit you out.” I’m going to teach my boys World History Notes by Rushdoony this year. And one of the beautiful things about that book is he shows these ancient civilizations and how they didn’t do—They acted like in their Adamic nature and they didn’t honor God in the context of their lands and God would spew them out. He would bring their civilizations to dust and this country can either turn back to God or it will be vomited out of this particular land as well in America.

There’s no unmediated relationships. It’s not the land is neutral. It’s directly governed by God’s covenant word. And he brings these things to pass. And so it is with Adam’s expulsion from the garden. He’s driven out on the basis of his sin and he’s going to find as I said and we know that happiness is not being like God true biblical blessedness is being with God and he now has forfeited that through his sin then we have the guarding rather of the entrance in verse 24 the last verse of the narrative he drove out the man repeated term for emphasis and a strengthened term as well he sent him out and he drives him out of the land forceful action. And he places cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Can’t come back in the east entrance to the garden. Why to the east? Because that’s where the doorway to the garden was. So he kicks him out the doorway. He drives him out. Now it’s interesting. These same two terms are used in Exodus 6:1 when God says to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. With a strong hand, he will let them go your people and with a strong hand he will drive them out of this land. So Pharaoh and his expulsion of God’s people from Egypt is sort of like the other book end of this expulsion from the garden because what God is going to do with Pharaoh expelling Moses and the people of God from Egypt is they’re going to go back to the garden. They’re going to go back to Canaan as it were a picture of the dwelling place of God and they’re going to set up special gardens there, the temple, the place where they had to go to worship and then the holy of holies.

And in that holy of holies are those same cherubim who are guarding the way to God. That temple is going to have cherubim all over in the context of its design pictures of cherubim. Two large cherubim at one place in the entrance and then two cherubims standing over the very ark of the presence of God, his mercy seat, his glory seat, his throne of judgment. So it’s the same imagery. So we know from reading later on the text that what the big scope of history is. We’re cast out, but then we’re brought back in through the providential acts of God. And of course, ultimately, as I said, it’s the death of the Lord Jesus Christ that opens that doorway up. It’s his blood that you have to plead when you come in the doors of the church. When you seek entrance into the garden of God to have Lord’s day, the day that God came to visit Adam, the day he comes to visit us, to have Lord’s day food here and not to be killed by that food, not to be judged on account of that food, not to have your lives get worse instead of getting better. You have to come through the door of the church and you walk in here pleading the blood of Christ, not of the blood of your own works or the fruit of your own works.

Cain grew crops. He could clothe himself. Adam says, “I got to kill sheep. Kill things.” That’s the acceptable sacrifice. You see, Abel got in Cain didn’t get in. God didn’t accept it. Zap. Big lightning bolt. Didn’t hit Cain the first time, but it’ll come. That lightning that comes forth from those angels with those zigzagging lightning sort of swords. It is real. And it’s no less real today. We think it isn’t real because we can’t see it. But the word of God tells us, don’t do what you think is right. Believe my word. My word says you got to battle with the beast. And I have assigned that beast, that cherubim, to kill you if you try to come into my garden not pleading the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, how did you come here today? What clothing did you put on? Were your works good enough? You worked so hard at looking good enough and doing right this week and pile up enough good deeds you could come through that door and say, “I’m good enough to get in here.” God says, “Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Now, I know none of us do that self-consciously, but I know that all of us do that in varying ways and to varying degrees because that’s our Adamic nature. God’s delivering us from it, but apart from his grace, that’s what we do. We think we can take care of ourselves. We think we can clothe ourselves. God says, “No, I’ll bring you back in, but I’m only going to bring you in the way I decide to bring you in. If you try any other way to come in, my cherubim are going to kill you.”

The Levites killed people who tried to break into the temple of God. The elders of the church do the best they can to guard people—to guard the sacraments rather—to keep them away from people who try to break into the church by throwing lightning bolts as it were—prayers for God’s particular judgments on such people. Well, that’s what God does here with Adam. He kicks him out in a very direct driving out sort of way. He will be brought back in, but it’ll only be through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ pictured in the rending of the veil and the entrance to garden being brought back to us.

Now, as I said, one last comment before we get to this other application stuff, and that is just again what I said earlier about death. Why didn’t Adam die? Well, that assumes we know what death is. And you know, if you think about death, there’s a lot of different ideas about what death is and isn’t and how important physical death is. Mr. Immo was out doing our conference last Friday. He was talking about Alexander Hamilton who died in a duel with Aaron Burr. And according to a letter that he wrote to his wife, Hamilton had determined as a good Christian not to shoot back at Burr in that duel. He thought he had to go do the duel for the sake of honor. Honor was more important to him than life. But he thought that to live having dishonored himself by killing another man would be even worse. So Aaron Burr wrote a letter to his wife and he said, “You know, wife, when you hear tomorrow of my fate, remember you’re a Christian.” And what did he mean by that? He meant that to Christians, death in the body is not our ultimate deal. That’s not what we’re supposed to be worried about. Honor, obedience to God, and honoring the Lord Jesus Christ in all of our actions. That’s what death or the absence of death should mean to us.

And if we die in the body, that’s okay. Well, as I said, Adam was here was kicked out of that very presence of God. This was a living death. This was where this was where the stories of the zombies and the night of the living dead all come from folks. This is the living dead out there who’s still alive, but he’s aware of it. He still has motion. But the book of Ephesians tells us that we’re walking dead men because death is defined by relationship with God and proximity to him and we’ve been kicked out. Now, we can be ushered back in through the grace of God, but we’re kicked out in the context of the narrative. Okay.

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Application. Why things are the way they are? This is earth, not heaven. Why do men exercise dominion, albeit in a twisted way, because of that sunrise story of God being placed in the garden to exercise dominion. Why do men love to get married and then hate their wives or argue with their wives and not treat them the way they should? Why do women want to get married and yet then things don’t turn out so good? You know, you’ve heard that marriage is like a bath. After a little while, it isn’t so hot anymore. Well, why? Well, you want to get married because on that second part of that rising sunshine story. Marriage is one of the best things God gives to man. It’s the first provision he makes for man in terms of an excellent all good creation. He still sees man as needing a helpmate. It’s a wonderful thing. And yet by the end of the story, we know that marriage has been set on its head because of man’s sin.

Why does Clinton speak the way he does? Why do I speak the way I do sometimes? Why do you speak the way you do sometimes? Well, you’re not honest. You’re not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth because you’re imaging the serpent instead of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why do we engage in logical fallacies, logical delusions one of another? Because the serpent taught us how to do that. His job, I think, was to teach us to do what’s right and he taught us to do what was wrong and he got punished for that. But remember, man was created lower than the angels for a little while. The angels were our overseers to guide us to maturity. And Satan being the top of all angels supposed to guide us probably in terms of speech. But he taught us the wrong thing and so we image him.

Why are we like that? Why do we sin? Because Adam, our covenantal head, sinned. Why are we stubborn in the face of God’s grace? God’s grace came to Adam in the judicial inquiry and yet he said, “Oh, no, no, no. Woman made me do it.” Why are we like that? Why do our children when we go to them not fess up immediately? Because they’re Adamic in their fallen nature. They’re in earth. They’re not in heaven. We’re out here now. Cain and Abel are raised in the land, not in the garden.

Why is our calling so difficult? Why is it so tough to have kids? From the moment of conception to their maturation till the day they leave the door, sorrows and pain are multiplied. Why? Because of the sin and because of what that 2 or 4:00 account told us about God’s sentence upon us at 4:00 in that arching structure of from sunrise to sunset. Why is it tough to submit to my husband? I mean really in a godly way to desire his leadership and desire it to be in such a way that I can gratefully acknowledge and obey it. Why is that hard for you ladies? Because God has placed this sentence upon you because of your rejection in Eve of his grace and his submission to godly authority. Difficult.

Why our husbands have such a tough time working? Why do we have a hard time? Why do we go to work and sometimes it takes all day to accomplish? Might have even gone reversed in some days. I’ve had days like that. You end the day worse off you began the day even though you worked real hard all day long. I’m sure Tom’s had that kind of stuff trying to put in water. You know, you just can’t get the stuff to come through the system. Hanging sheetrock. I’m sure there are jobs when it just everything goes wrong. The stuff sets up too fast. Whatever it is. Everything’s like that. My studies I can spend hours on the internet and walk away completely with nothing in my hand that I didn’t know coming into it. There’s thorns and thistles or I can log into the internet and it can be slow as molasses.

And why? Because this is earth. This isn’t heaven. Because vocation is now hard. God wants us to know how great our sin and misery is. You would have done no better than Adam and Eve. They had it all. You didn’t. I believe they were the preeminent. They were that champion who goes out for the people. The best of us, the Goliath, the David. You would have done no better. God wants us to know the depth of our sin and misery.

Now, I want to talk just briefly about triumphalism and the cross. Triumphalism—big word. It gets thrown around some about people like us. Frankly, people say that people who are optimistic about the future, postmillennial, we’ll call it that, that they’re triumphalistic. Well, you need to know what that word means because maybe number one, it’s true about you or maybe it isn’t true. But there may be a time in which someone will accuse you of it.

What does it mean? Well, there’s different forms of it. First, there is a sense in which triumphalism is correct. There’s a biblical truth to triumphalism and God does win at the end of the day, and the church will prosper and will be added to and will manifest Christ’s glory in history. 2 Corinthians 2:14 tells us, “Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ.” But that’s an interesting verse. He leads us in triumphal procession in Christ. Well, the victor would take the ones he had conquered in triumphal procession. We are in triumphal procession, but we’re the ones who have been triumphed over. Okay? Now, we triumph in Christ. We’re more than victors in Christ. But, you know, if you think that you’re better because you possess the truth about the scriptures or the Reformed faith or the whatever it is, Instead of remembering that the truth, Jesus Christ, possesses you. Okay? Then you’re prone to triumphalism. You think you’re all right. You think you got it all figured out. We got all this stuff working now. We’re going to start doing the right stuff and blessings are going to happen. There’s political triumphalism. We’re going to elect those Christian candidates. We’re going to put out that Christian voters guide. And you know, by George, we’re going to affect change. And boy, that contract with America, that was half the model right there. We’re almost there now. Somehow foolishly thinking that we possess the truth instead of the truth possessing us. And that we’re going to be triumphalistic in the sense of just work hard, apply this stuff, name and claim it. Whether it’s political or economic, we’re going to have it right here. Everything’s going to be rosy.

My wife went to Multnomahed School of the Bible for a number of years. And they didn’t call it triumphalism, but I could probably call it triumphalism the way that at that time many of the kids acted because the idea was you’re never supposed to frown. You are always supposed to be happy in the Lord. Yeah, I’m happy in the Lord. Yeah. Yeah. You go to prayer many. Yeah, I’m happy. Yeah, I’m happy. Everything’s great. And you go home and ball your eyes out because you got sin all over your life. Got sin in your relationships or you just don’t know what’s going on. Maybe you don’t even have sin. Maybe you’re just depressed because you can’t figure things out. Well, see, that’s because we’re in earth, not heaven. It’s wrong.

Whether it’s personal, whether it’s political triumphalism, economic triumphalism, some people charismatics can, you know, just name it and claim it. And if you say the right verse and cast out the right demon, everything’s going to be great. You’re going to be joyous in your life. Or whether it’s the kind of personal triumphalism that we can be prone to that says we should never be depressed. We should never be downcast. We should always be victorious. And when somebody asks you how your week was, you tell them it was great. I conquered in Christ. Well, that’s why we one reason why we sing the Psalms all the time. David didn’t know about that kind of life. He wouldn’t have done well. And I hate to be using names, but he wouldn’t have done well at some of these Bible colleges. He was downcast a lot. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Sometimes, you know, and sometimes you don’t know. Sometimes it’s because of your sin. Sometimes it’s because of somebody else’s sin that you’re close to. Usually, it’s because both of your sinning and you both think you’re better than you really are.

And God is showing you through that depression of being downcast that neither one of you are doing all that good. He’s teaching you the depth of your sin and your misery that you might be more grateful and thankful to him and might find your salvation not in pressing the demands of the law as we modify our reform ourselves but coming to the foot of the cross. The foot of the cross is the death of triumphalism for the Christian.